Contact

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Hi there! Interested in taking a little trip down to Mexico for Day of the Dead this year under the guidance of Mexican writer and history of death in Mexico scholar Salvador Olguín and organized by Morbid Anatomy?

The trip will take us to some of the of lesser-known macabre destinations in Mexico holding unique gems associated with the culture of death. Our journey will take us to two off-the-beaten-track Day of the Dead celebrations, special tours of obscure museums, markets selling Day of the Dead and Santa Muerte artifacts, churches, cemeteries, and, throughout, great regional cuisine (and drink!) and luxury transportation...

This
Halloween season, why not join Morbid Anatomy and Mexican scholar
Salvador Olguín for a very special 4-day, 4-night trip to Mexico for our
favorite holiday, Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead?

With
Mexican writer and history of death in Mexico scholar Salvador Olguín
as our guide, this tour will introduce attendees to some of the of
lesser-known macabre destinations in Mexico holding unique gems
associated with the culture of death. Our journey will take us to two
off-the-beaten-track Day of the Dead celebrations, special tours of
obscure museums, markets selling Day of the Dead and Santa Muerte
artifacts, churches, cemeteries, and, throughout, great regional cuisine
(and drink!) and luxury transportation.

Departing from Monterrey,
the trip will take us to the beautiful, historical colonial cities of
Guanajuato, Zacatecas and Aguascalientes to experience an area
traditionally described as wild and untamed within Mexico. This region
of Mexico is uniquely important to the history of death in Mexico in
that it was the home of both José Guadalupe Posada and Joaquín de
Bolaños, author of the first official Mexican biography of DeathLa Portentosa Vida de la Muerte published in 1792.

A
plethora of stores and other places for shopping, delicious food, an
evening tour of Guanajuato with live music included, and much more.

October 31
We
recommend arriving in Monterrey on the evening of Halloween, October
31. We will have a Halloween celebration, Mexican style, and we will
depart to our first destination early in the morning of November 1st.

November 1st - Monterrey/Guanajuato
We
will convene in Monterrey, Mexico at 7:30 in the morning, and leave for
the city of Guanajuato by bus. Mexico’s Museo de las Momias (Mummy
Museum) makes the small Colonial city of Guanajuato the star of this
tour. The Mummy Museum has been displaying the naturally mummified
bodies of people buried in the local cemetery for almost 150 years. A
combination of dry weather, a mineral-rich soil, and a potent
concentration of minerals in the water makes every person who has lived
and died in Guanajuato a potential mummy, according to local lore. The
museum itself is a wonderful combination of the macabre and the kitsch.
You can visit the actual cemetery and see real mummies, but you can also
visit the ‘modern’ Halloweenesque section of the museum, and eat charamuscas, a sugary candy shaped like a mummy.

November 2nd – Zacatecas
Zacatecas,
another small Colonial city in Northern Mexico, was the home of Joaquín
de Bolaños, author of the first official Mexican biography of Death.La Portentosa Vida de la Muerte was
first published in 1792, and was quickly condemned by the literary
elites and some prominent officers of the Inquisition. The book managed
to survive, and nowadays the City of Zacatecas honors Bolaños, its
prodigal son, with a festival named after him around Day of the Dead.

November 3rd – Aguascalientes
Aguascalientes
was the birthplace of José Guadalupe Posada. Posada’s Calaveras have
become icons of the festivities around Día de Muertos. In this city, we
will visit the José Guadalupe Posada Museum, which houses original
illustrations by Posada and other engravers of the time. The tour
includes an exclusive visit of the Museo Nacional de la Muerte (National
Museum of Death.)
We will be back in Monterrey by November 4
after 5:00 p.m. Please consider this for your traveling arrangements.
For more information, contact info [at] borderlineprojects.com

Cost: $600.00 USD - airfares not included, non-refundable down payment of $250.00 required by July 20 to reserve . Email info [at] borderlineprojects.com for questions.
The
$600 fee covers land transportation in a luxury bus, traveler
insurance, lodging (double rooms at hotels), taxes, breakfasts, guided
tours, tickets to all museums, special visits to some of the sites, and
special treats.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Thanks so much to Anna Maerker for drawing my attention to the wonderful sounding "Case Studies of Medical Portraiture" workshop taking place at King's College on Friday, July 12. It features a number of my scholars and is also, delightfully, free and open to the public; email douglas.james [at] kcl.ac.uk to register.

Hope to see you there!And I highly recommend clicking on the above image; it gets a lot more interesting at a larger size!

To be followed by a drinks reception. Since places are limited, please contact douglas.james [at] kcl.ac.uk to register. We are grateful to the Wellcome Trust for its generous support. Organisers: Keren Hammerschlag, Ludmilla Jordanova, Douglas James and Anna Maerker.

Image: Barclay Bros., A composite group portrait of the Fellows of the
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1902, photogravure, 55.5 x
80.9cm (Wellcome Images).

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Kill time at death talks: Morbid Anatomy lecture series at Last Tuesday SocietyBatty events for those with grave concerns take in such subjects as the Neapolitan cult of the dead and London’s folk medicine

The summer months have heralded the arrival of a new lecture series.

The subject is death.

Proceedings at the Morbid Anatomy Lecture Series, which began last month and is continuing through July at The Last Tuesday Society in Mare Street, have included a “wax wound workshop” and a talk on the Neapolitan cult of the dead.

Still to come are talks on the “danse macabre” and London’s folk medicine, and there will be an opportunity to create your very own bat in glass dome – using a real dead bat....

In
this class, students will learn how to create an osteological
preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays.
A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary
materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome
to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural
elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her
composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking,
fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass
dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY
Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine
collection of curiosities! This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer
workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for
Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the
Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of
specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create
compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste,
will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display.
More on the series can be found here.

Wilder Duncan
is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas
still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan
University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural
history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen
preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store
creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical
interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects,
tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human.
Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to
old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.

During
the middle ages, the danse macabre developed into an independent art
form, most often in the shape of murals which adorned the walls of
cemeteries. These depictions of death followed a strict rulebook and
generally were a representation of the class system of the time, which
was based on nobility or – to be more precise – the estate-based
society. The advent of the bourgeois during the 1700s and the upcoming
industrialisation put a question mark not only behind the societal
system, but quite naturally also behind many of the established art
forms. The danse macabre was widely regarded to be an outdated concept
and a discussion evolved whether the skeleton still was the appropriate
epitome for death. One of the proponents of this discussion was the
Swiss artist Johann Rudolf Schellenberg, who created the first modern
danse macabre in 1785, far away from the old class system, a work of art
which still has an uncanny actuality and addresses many of the modern
fears still extant in society at present. His trailblazing work updated
the genre overnight and can be seen as the master source of all similar
works of art to follow. A complete set of the plates is held by the
Roche Historical Collection and Archive in Basel, which also holds one
of the world’s oldest anatomical collections. The lecture not only
discusses Schellenberg’s danse macabre in detail, but also gives an
insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions,
especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes
into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.

Alexander
L. Bieri (*1976) is the curator of the Roche Historical Collection and
Archive, a department within Roche Group Holdings. He assumes this
position since 1999. Based in Basel, Switzerland but active as a
consultant throughout the world, he has published many books and
articles both on Roche-related and other themes. He also is responsible
for a variety of Roche in-house museums and curated special exhibitions
in Switzerland and abroad. In his capacity as an expert for 20th century
architecture and design, he is a member of ICOMOS. In 2012, he was
appointed lecturer for exhibition design at the Basel University.

The
worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form
of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly
controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to
“Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” the worship of Santa Muerte–like Day of
the Dead–is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich
syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the
colonizing Spanish Catholics. Worshippers of "The Bony Lady" include the
very poor, prostitutes, drug dealers, transvestites, prison inmates and
others for whom traditional religion has not served, and for whom the
possibility of unpredictable and violent death is a very real part of
everyday life. In the view of her worshippers, Santa Muerte is simply a
branch of Catholicism which takes at its central figure the most
powerful of all saints--Saint Death herself, the saint all must, after
all, one day answer to.The Catholic Church sees it, however, as, at
best, inadvertent devil worship, with the worship of death--and the
manifestation of a saint from a concept rather than an individual--as
heretical to its core tenants. Tonight, R. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint
and Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, will
detail his research into the history and ongoing development of this
fascinating "new religion."

Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut
earned his Ph.D degree in Latin American History from the University of
California, Los Angeles in 1995 and joined the History Department
faculty at the University of Houston in 1997 where he quickly became an
internationally recognized expert on Latin American religious history.
His most recent book is Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012). It is the first in-depth study of the Mexican folk saint in English.

During
his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest
collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British
Isles. Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived
from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets,
charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in
20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices.
Lovett, however, was a marginal figure in folklore circles, never
attaining the same degree of influence as many of his peers. Whilst he
hoped in his lifetime to establish a 'National Museum of Folklore',
Lovett's sizeable collection is now widely dispersed across many museums
in the UK, including Wellcome Collection, the Science Museum, the Pitt
Rivers Museum and the Cuming Museum. This paper will offer an overview
of the range of healing objects Lovett collected, the collecting
practices he performed and recent efforts to rehabilitate his
reputation.

Ross MacFarlane
is Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library, where he is
heavily involved in promoting the Library's collections, particularly to
academic audiences. He has researched and given public talks on such
topics as the history of early recorded sound and the collecting
activities of Henry Wellcome and his members of staff. Ross is a
frequent contributor to the Wellcome Library's blog
and has had led guided walks around London on the occult past of
Bloomsbury and the intersection of medicine, science and trade in
Greenwich and Deptford.

This
heavily illustrated presentation and film clip selection explores
London's Highgate Cemetery as a locus of horror in the 1960s and 1970s
cinema, from mondo and exploitation to classic Hammer horror.

William Fowler
is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and
co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

Tonight,
the British Film Institute's William Fowler will present a number of
rare and beautiful short films from the BFI National Archive and
Regional Film Archives showing some of our rich traditions of folk
music, dance, customs and sport. Highlights include the alcoholic folk
musical Here's a Health to the Barley Mow (1955), Doc Rowe’s speedy
sword dancing film and the Padstow Mayday celebration Oss Oss Wee Oss
(Alan Lomax/Peter Kennedy 1953).

The programme provides
a taste of the BFI's 6-hour DVD release 'Here's a Health to the Barley
Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games', a rich and
wide-ranging collection of archive films from around the UK.

William Fowler
is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and
co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

This
talk argues that the creative imagination played a crucial role in the
development of science during the scientific revolution. Modern, natural
knowledge emerged from the interaction of painters, printmakers,
artisans, cartographers, and natural historians. All these practitioners
carefully observed, pictured and cataloged all the exotic naturalia
that flooded Europe during the Columbian exchange. Yet their
collaboration did not end there. They also engaged in a joint,
conjectural guesswork as to what other, as yet unknown plants and
animals might hide in the forests of New England, the archipelago of the
Caribbean, the unfathomable depths of the Northern Sea, or even in the
cavernous mountains of the Moon. From its beginnings, science was (and
still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts.
This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major
artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the
scientific revolution. It shows how painters’ and printmakers’
fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the
botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe. The
leading naturalists of the age, including Conrad Gesner, Carolus Clusius
and John Jonstonus, constantly consulted the oeuvre of Dürer, Rubens
and Hendrick Goltzius, among others, as an inspiration to hypothesize
how unknown, and unseen, plants and animals might look like.

Daniel Margocsy
is assistant professor of history at Hunter College – CUNY. In 2012/3,
he is the Birkelund Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman
Center for Scholars and Writers. He has co-edited States of Secrecy, a
special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science on
scientific secrecy, and published articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Annals of Science, and the Netherlands Yearbook of Art History.

All talks and workshops take place at The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified; please click here to buy tickets. More on all events can be found here. Click on images to see larger versions.

Monday, June 24, 2013

SKULL MEMENTO MORI LOCKET RING
England, 17th century Gold, enamel, diamonds and ruby. Solid, narrow hoop terminating in scrolled shoulders each set with a diamond. The bezel consists of a relief modeled skull and crossbones. The eye sockets are filled with rose-cut diamonds and the nose cavity is set with a triangular step-cut diamond; the mouth is engraved with clenched teeth. Each of the femurs is set with 4 diamonds at the heads, trochanters and condyls. A hinge below the skull’s chin opens a locket within which is set a small heart-shaped ruby.

For sale at the Masterpiece London 2013 show running from 27 June – 3 July (with a Preview on 26 June) on the South Grounds of The Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3. You will find it at stand A10, the booth of a company called Les Enluminures. The price unclear; you can find out more here.

Are
you interested in learning about the incredible holdings of Amsterdam's Vrolik Museum (top three images) with its "two
skeletons of dwarves, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of
pathologically deformed bones, the giant skull of a grown man with
hydrocephalus, the skeleton of the lion once owned by king Louis
Napoleon, as well as the organs of a babirusa, Tasmanian devil and tree
kangaroo"? If so, then tonight's (Monday, June 24th) heavily illustrated lecture by its curator Laurens de Rooy flown in direct from The Netherlans is the night for you.

If this does not interest, perhaps you might be interested in a talk (and demonstration!) by The Science Museum's Phil Loring on Galvani's experiments to wake the dead in 19th century London? (Tomorrow night, Tuesday, June 25th) Or, failing that, perhaps we might be able to tempt you with an illustrated lecture by the incredible Mike Jay on James Tilly Matthews’ "influencing machine" (Wednesday, June 26th)? If this still does not suit, then perhaps you might wish to take in an illustrated lecture by Pamela Pilbeam--author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks-- on Madame Tussaud and the Guillotine (4th down; Thursday, June 27th).

Perhaps lectures are simply not your thing! In that case, perhaps you might like to attend a backstage tour of the zoological collections of The Natural History Museum (Friday June 28th) or a workshop on the crafting of bat skeletons in glass domes (bottom image; Saturday and Sunday, June 29th and 30th).

Full details and ticket links follow; most events cost £7 and take place at 7pm at London's Last Tuesday Society. Hope to see you at one or more!

Two
skeletons of dwarves, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of
pathologically deformed bones, the giant skull of a grown man with
hydrocephalus, the skeleton of the lion once owned by king Louis
Napoleon, as well as the organs of a babirusa, Tasmanian devil and tree
kangaroo – rare animals that died in the Amsterdam zoo ‘Artis’ shortly
before their dissection. Counting more than five thousand preparations
and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father
Gerard (1775-1859) and his son Willem Vrolik (1801-1863), was an amazing
object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and
50s this museum, established in Gerard’s stately mansion on the river
Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists
from both the Netherlands and abroad. After the Vrolik era, the museum
was expanded with new collections by succeeding anatomists and the
museum now houses more than 10,000 anatomical specimens.

Since
1984, the museum has been located in the academic Hospital of the
University of Amsterdam. In 2009 the museum collections were portrayed
by the photographer Hans van den Bogaard for the book Forces of Form.
This book was the starting point for the creation of a new 'aesthetic'
of the museum and its collection, eventually resulting in the grand
reopening of the renovated and redesigned permanent exhibition in
September 2012. For the first time since the death of father and son
Vrolik, all of their scientific interests - the animal anatomy, the
congenital malformations and the pathologically deformed human skeletons
can all be viewed together, thus giving an impression of what that
mid-19th century anatomy was all about. In this talk, Museum Vrolik
curator will take you on a guided tour of the new museum, and give an
overview of all the other aspects of the 'new' Museum Vrolik.

Dr. Laurens de Rooy
(b. 1974) works as a curator of the Museum Vrolik in the Academic
Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He studied Medical Biology, specializing in
the history of science and museology. during his internship he
researched the collection of father and son Vrolik. In 2009 he obtained
his PhD in medical history.

A
visiting Italian startled Londoners at the turn of the 19th century by
making decapitated animals and executed men open their eyes and move
around, as if on the verge of being restored to life. This was not magic
but the power of electricity from the newly invented Galvanic trough,
or battery. It was also the dawn of the modern neurosciences, as the
thrust behind these macabre experiments was to understand the energy
that moved through the nerves and linked our wills to our bodies. This
talk will discuss a variety of historical instruments from the Science
Museum's collections that figured in these re-animation experiments,
including the apparatus used by Galvani himself in his laboratory in
Bologna. This will be a partial preview of an upcoming Science Museum
exhibition on nerve activity, to open in December 2013.

Phil Loring
is BPS Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London. He has a
Master's degree in Medical Anthropology from Harvard University and is
currently completing his Ph.D. in the History of Science, also from
Harvard, with a dissertation on psycho-linguists in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, after the Second World War. Phil has been at the Science
Museum since 2009, and during that time he has been particularly
committed to sharing artefacts related to psychology and psychiatry with
adult audiences. He's currently preparing an exhibition on the history
of nerves, to open in December 2013.

Confined
in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews’ case
is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first
person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the
Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious
gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution,
terror and war. But Matthews’ case was even stranger than his doctors
realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be
involved were entirely real. Caught up in high-level diplomatic
intrigues in the chaos of the French revolution, he found himself
betrayed by both sides, and in possession of a secret that no-one would
believe…

Madame Tussaud, the French and the Guillotine: Illustrated Lecture by Pamela Pilbeam Emeritus Professor of French
History, Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks

`You
perceive that this is some sort of holy of holiest, the nearest
Victorians got to a Cathedral, with its saints enniched within’. The
chief saint in Madame Tussaud’s exhibition was Bonaparte, the chief
villains were Robespierre and his revolutionary colleagues. When she
arrived in Britain in 1802 for a short tour that lasted until she died
in 1850, her exhibition was an exploration of the evils of the French
Revolution. She had modelled the guillotined revolutionaries, as well as
Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, from their severed heads- and brought a
model of a guillotine and the Bastille fortress to expose the short
comings of the French. The British, busily at war with their nearest
neighbour, loved this critical exposure. Later the focus of her
collection became her `Shrine to Napoleon’ consisted of two rooms
dedicated to the Emperor. Napoleon had always had a leading role in her
touring company, but in 1834, when she was a well-established figure in
the world of entertainment and about to open a permanent museum in Baker
Street, Madame. Tussaud began to amass large quantities of Napoleonic
memorabilia. She built up a collection which Napoleon III acknowledged,
when he tried abortively to buy it from the Tussauds, to be the best in
the world. Madame Tussaud’s presentation of French politics and history
did much to inform and influence the popular perception of France among
the British. This paper will explore that view and how it changed during
the nineteenth century.

Today,
ten lucky people will get to join Miranda Lowe, Collections Manager of
the Aquatic Invertebrates Division, for a special backstage tour of The
Natural History Museum of London. The tour will showcase the zoological
spirit collections in the Darwin Centre, some of Darwin’s barnacles and
the famed collection of glass marine invertebrate models crafted by
Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the 19th and early 20th century.

Miranda
Lowe is the Collections Manager of the Aquatic Invertebrates Division,
Life Sciences Department, The Natural History Museum (NHM), London.
Within Zoology Miranda specifically manages the Crustacea collections as
well as the team of curators responsible for the Invertebrate
collections. Darwin barnacles and the Blaschka marine invertebrate glass
models are amongst some of the historical collections that are her
interests and under her care. In 2006, she was part of the organising
committee and invited speaker at the 1st international Blaschka congress
held in Dublin. Miranda collaborated with the National Glass Centre,
Sunderland, UK in 2008 to exhibit some of the Museum’s Blaschka
collection alongside contemporary Blaschka inspired art. She also has an
interest in photography, natural history - past and present serving on a
number of committees including the Society for the History of Natural
History (SHNH) and the Natural Sciences Association (NatSCA).

In
this class, students will learn how to create an osteological
preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays.
A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary
materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome
to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural
elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her
composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking,
fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass
dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY
Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine
collection of curiosities! This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer
workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for
Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the
Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of
specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create
compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste,
will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display.
More on the series can be found here.

Wilder Duncan
is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas
still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan
University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural
history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen
preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store
creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical
interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects,
tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human.
Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to
old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.

During
the middle ages, the danse macabre developed into an independent art
form, most often in the shape of murals which adorned the walls of
cemeteries. These depictions of death followed a strict rulebook and
generally were a representation of the class system of the time, which
was based on nobility or – to be more precise – the estate-based
society. The advent of the bourgeois during the 1700s and the upcoming
industrialisation put a question mark not only behind the societal
system, but quite naturally also behind many of the established art
forms. The danse macabre was widely regarded to be an outdated concept
and a discussion evolved whether the skeleton still was the appropriate
epitome for death. One of the proponents of this discussion was the
Swiss artist Johann Rudolf Schellenberg, who created the first modern
danse macabre in 1785, far away from the old class system, a work of art
which still has an uncanny actuality and addresses many of the modern
fears still extant in society at present. His trailblazing work updated
the genre overnight and can be seen as the master source of all similar
works of art to follow. A complete set of the plates is held by the
Roche Historical Collection and Archive in Basel, which also holds one
of the world’s oldest anatomical collections. The lecture not only
discusses Schellenberg’s danse macabre in detail, but also gives an
insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions,
especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes
into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.

Alexander
L. Bieri (*1976) is the curator of the Roche Historical Collection and
Archive, a department within Roche Group Holdings. He assumes this
position since 1999. Based in Basel, Switzerland but active as a
consultant throughout the world, he has published many books and
articles both on Roche-related and other themes. He also is responsible
for a variety of Roche in-house museums and curated special exhibitions
in Switzerland and abroad. In his capacity as an expert for 20th century
architecture and design, he is a member of ICOMOS. In 2012, he was
appointed lecturer for exhibition design at the Basel University.

The
worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form
of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly
controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to
“Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” the worship of Santa Muerte–like Day of
the Dead–is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich
syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the
colonizing Spanish Catholics. Worshippers of "The Bony Lady" include the
very poor, prostitutes, drug dealers, transvestites, prison inmates and
others for whom traditional religion has not served, and for whom the
possibility of unpredictable and violent death is a very real part of
everyday life. In the view of her worshippers, Santa Muerte is simply a
branch of Catholicism which takes at its central figure the most
powerful of all saints--Saint Death herself, the saint all must, after
all, one day answer to.The Catholic Church sees it, however, as, at
best, inadvertent devil worship, with the worship of death--and the
manifestation of a saint from a concept rather than an individual--as
heretical to its core tenants. Tonight, R. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint
and Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, will
detail his research into the history and ongoing development of this
fascinating "new religion."

Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut
earned his Ph.D degree in Latin American History from the University of
California, Los Angeles in 1995 and joined the History Department
faculty at the University of Houston in 1997 where he quickly became an
internationally recognized expert on Latin American religious history.
His most recent book is Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012). It is the first in-depth study of the Mexican folk saint in English.

During
his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest
collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British
Isles. Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived
from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets,
charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in
20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices.
Lovett, however, was a marginal figure in folklore circles, never
attaining the same degree of influence as many of his peers. Whilst he
hoped in his lifetime to establish a 'National Museum of Folklore',
Lovett's sizeable collection is now widely dispersed across many museums
in the UK, including Wellcome Collection, the Science Museum, the Pitt
Rivers Museum and the Cuming Museum. This paper will offer an overview
of the range of healing objects Lovett collected, the collecting
practices he performed and recent efforts to rehabilitate his
reputation.

Ross MacFarlane
is Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library, where he is
heavily involved in promoting the Library's collections, particularly to
academic audiences. He has researched and given public talks on such
topics as the history of early recorded sound and the collecting
activities of Henry Wellcome and his members of staff. Ross is a
frequent contributor to the Wellcome Library's blog
and has had led guided walks around London on the occult past of
Bloomsbury and the intersection of medicine, science and trade in
Greenwich and Deptford.

This
heavily illustrated presentation and film clip selection explores
London's Highgate Cemetery as a locus of horror in the 1960s and 1970s
cinema, from mondo and exploitation to classic Hammer horror.

William Fowler
is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and
co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

Tonight,
the British Film Institute's William Fowler will present a number of
rare and beautiful short films from the BFI National Archive and
Regional Film Archives showing some of our rich traditions of folk
music, dance, customs and sport. Highlights include the alcoholic folk
musical Here's a Health to the Barley Mow (1955), Doc Rowe’s speedy
sword dancing film and the Padstow Mayday celebration Oss Oss Wee Oss
(Alan Lomax/Peter Kennedy 1953).

The programme provides
a taste of the BFI's 6-hour DVD release 'Here's a Health to the Barley
Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games', a rich and
wide-ranging collection of archive films from around the UK.

William Fowler
is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and
co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

This
talk argues that the creative imagination played a crucial role in the
development of science during the scientific revolution. Modern, natural
knowledge emerged from the interaction of painters, printmakers,
artisans, cartographers, and natural historians. All these practitioners
carefully observed, pictured and cataloged all the exotic naturalia
that flooded Europe during the Columbian exchange. Yet their
collaboration did not end there. They also engaged in a joint,
conjectural guesswork as to what other, as yet unknown plants and
animals might hide in the forests of New England, the archipelago of the
Caribbean, the unfathomable depths of the Northern Sea, or even in the
cavernous mountains of the Moon. From its beginnings, science was (and
still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts.
This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major
artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the
scientific revolution. It shows how painters’ and printmakers’
fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the
botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe. The
leading naturalists of the age, including Conrad Gesner, Carolus Clusius
and John Jonstonus, constantly consulted the oeuvre of Dürer, Rubens
and Hendrick Goltzius, among others, as an inspiration to hypothesize
how unknown, and unseen, plants and animals might look like.

Daniel Margocsy
is assistant professor of history at Hunter College – CUNY. In 2012/3,
he is the Birkelund Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman
Center for Scholars and Writers. He has co-edited States of Secrecy, a
special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science on
scientific secrecy, and published articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Annals of Science, and the Netherlands Yearbook of Art History.

All talks and workshops take place at The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified; please click here to buy tickets. More on all events can be found here. Click on images to see larger versions.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Morbid Anatomy is delighted to announce a number of new Brooklyn-based workshops taking place in the weeks and months to come! Offerings include anthropomorphic insect shadowboxes, wearable and displayable taxidermy, and ex voto making; Full details on all follow. Hope to see you at one or more!

Today,
join former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy Tainton for
Observatory's popular Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop. In this
class, students will work with Rhinoceros beetles: nature's tiny
giants. Each student will learn to make--and leave with their
own!--shadowbox dioramas featuring carefully positioned beetles doing
nearly anything you can imagine. Beetles and shadowboxes are provided,
and an assortment of miniature furniture, foods, and other props will be
available to decorate your habitat. Students need bring nothing, though
are encouraged to bring along dollhouse props if they have a particular
vision for their final piece; 1:12 scale work best.

BEETLES WILL BE PROVIDED. Each student receives one beetle approximately 2-3 inches tall when posed vertically.

Daisy Taintonwas
formerly Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural
History, and has been working with insects professionally for several
years. Eventually her fascination with insects and love of Japanese
miniature food items naturally came together, resulting in cute and
ridiculous museum-inspired yet utterly unrealistic dioramas. Beetles at
the dentist? Beetles eating pie and knitting sweaters? Even beetles on
the toilet? Why not?

This
class will introduce students to basic taxidermy processes. As with
other classes, this is only open to 8 students to allow for a more
intimate one on one environment. Each student will be provided with
their own squirrel which they will skin, flesh, and prep for mounting.
Students will be taught how to wrap bodies for the animals using the
carcasses for reference. Wrapping is an old school traditional taxidermy
process that many taxidermists do not bother with today. Pre-sculpted
head forms will be available for students, but if they are feeling more
adventurous they can carve their own! Students will be able to pose
their squirrels however they want and are encouraged to bring in any
props they may want to dress the animal up in, and items to secure their
mounts on. Animal remains will be collected at the end of class and
either the students can take them with them, or the instructor will
dispose of them.

Rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato
has a BFA in sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, has been featured on the
hit TV show "Oddities," and has had her work featured at La Luz de Jesus
gallery in Los Angeles, California. She is self and professionally
taught, and has won multiple first place ribbons and awards at the
Garden State Taxidermy Association Competition. Her work is focussed on
displaying the cyclical connection between life and death and growth and
decomposition. Katie is a member of the Minnesota Association of Rogue
Taxidermists, and with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict
ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens and uses roadkill, scrap,
and donated skins to create mounts.

In
this class, students will create a fully finished mount from an English
sparrow. An awfully cute, yet highly invasive species commonly seen in
city and country alike, this class will cover introductory basic
techniques used for small bird taxidermy. Each student will begin with
their own sparrow, which they will proceed to skin, flesh, and mount in
the pose of their choice. A selection of anthropomorphic and
naturalistic props will be provided, although attendees are also welcome
to bring their own, allowing the student to customize their bird.
Students will create forms and poses using the technique of wrapping (a
very traditional method of creating forms for small animals). We will
also discuss the various methods of maintaining feet, beaks, and the
delicate nature of grooming feathers. Reference images will be provided,
though students are more than welcome to provide their own props and
inspiration. We will also discuss federal and state bird laws, as well
as the MBTA (a copy of which will be provided).

And please note: No animals were killed for the class.

Divya Anantharaman
is a Brooklyn based artist whose taxidermy practice was sparked by a
lifelong fascination with natural mythology and everyday oddities. After
a journey filled with trial and error, numerous books, and an inspiring
class (Sue Jeiven's popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class at
Observatory!), she has found her calling in creating sickly sweet and
sparkly critters. Beginning with mice and sparrows, her menagerie grew
to include domestic cats, woodchucks, and deer. Recently profiled on
Vice Fringes, the New York Observer, and other publications, she will
also be appearing in the upcoming season of Oddities-and is definitely
up to no good shenanigans. You can find out more at www.d-i-v-y-a.com.

Also, some technical notes:

We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.

Everyone will be provided with gloves.

All animals are disease free.

Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone

This
class will introduce students to basic small bird taxidermy processes.
As with other classes, this is only open to 8 students to allow for a
more intimate one on one environment. Each student will be provided with
their own quail which they will skin, flesh, and prep for mounting. Due
to the small and varying nature of these birds, we will be using the
old school traditional technique of wrapping bodies for these birds.
Students will learn how to mount a bird using its skull and learn how to
preserve the skin and pose it. Legalities of working with birds and
bird parts will also be discussed. A copy of the MBTA will be brought to
class and passed around to students.

Katie Innamorato,
artist and Rogue Taxidermist, is a member of the M.A.R.T. or Minnesota
Association of Rogue Taxidermists. She is professionally and self taught
in taxidermy; winning awards and ribbons every year at the GSTA. She
explores the commercial relationships between animals and our society
and her work questions the idea of bringing nature inside. She also
examines the cyclical connections between life and death, and growth and
decomposition. As with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict
ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens. She uses roadkill, scrap
skins from other taxidermists and the garment industry, and donated
skins to create her artworks; almost every part of the animal is
utilized.

Her work has been featured recently on the new Science
Channel show, "Odd Folks Home," on the hit Science and Discovery Channel
TV show, "Oddities," and exhibited at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los
Angeles, CA.

Students
will be provided with pre-skinned and tanned chicken hide elements
(wings, tails, heads, etc) along with millinery hardware and all the
glues, threads, chain, and miscellaneous decorative elements to create a
one of a kind custom taxidermy headpiece.

Starting with the
malleable hide parts, students will be instructed on how to manipulate,
fill and and position the feathered sections while anchoring them to the
metal hardware using foam mannequin heads (provided) for stability.
Millinery accents like netting, crinoline, jewels and metal
embellishments can then be added to complete the students' own personal
design, finishing off the workshop with instruction on lining the inside
and adding a personalized garment tag.

Students will leave with
their new wearable piece of fashion taxidermy, along with printed out
lesson sheets and sourcing info so that they may employ these new skills
for life.

Philadelphia’s premiere rogue taxidermist, Beth Beverly
specialises in wearable taxidermy. Her hats have won awards at the
Devon Horse Show, Brandywine Polo and Radnor Hunt Clubs. Her work has
been featured in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal,
plus galleries such as La Luz de Jesus, Art in the Age and Michael
Vincent Gallery. In 2010 Beverly won "Best in Show" at the annual
Carnivorous Nights competition in New York. Currently featured as an
"Immortalizer" on AMC's series about competitive taxidermy, she relishes
in being photographed wearing her work and defying common stereotypes
of taxidermists.

An
Ex-voto is an offering made in fulfillment of a vow, usually offered to
a particular saint or other divinity. The term is Latin in origin,
short for ex voto suscepto –“from the vow made." Ex-votos are
placed in chapels, shrines, and other places of pilgrimage to offer
thanks for blessings, healing, and to seek grace. Such places of
pilgrimage have been found throughout history and in such diverse places
as Egypt, Italy, and Mexico.

As ex-votos are often associated
with miraculous healing, the forms they take reflect the healed body
part. Hearts, lungs, legs, arms, heads, breasts, crutches, etc. often
find themselves replicated in embossed and sometimes painted metal which
adorn the walls of chapels in fantastic array. They are sometimes
accompanied by written verse as well. Such ex-votos stand not only as
tokens of thanks, but also as testaments of faith to other viewers.

This
class will demonstrate how to construct from sheet metal an ex-voto of
one’s own choosing. Using metal sheers and embossing tools, students
will learn how to lay out a design and create their own individualized
ex-voto suitable for hanging on a wall (chapel or otherwise). Metal and
tools will be supplied. Samples will be shown, as well as anatomical
images suitable for reproduction. Please bring sketchpad and pencil.

Karen Bachmann is
a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years
on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in
the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as
the School of Art & Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently
completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled
Hairy Secrets:... In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological
specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock.